Newsletter 2009/04
Tunaydin dear friends.
I have not been able to find the Turkish equivalent of ‘Hello’ or ‘good day’, so it has to be ‘tunaydin’ (good afternoon)!
We are now in Finike, south west Turkey and ready to depart for our cruise up the coast to Izmir and then back again here for the winter.
Finike is a small town, with a lovely three year old marina really planned for yachties like us, many of whom will be wintering here (some seem to have made it a permanent home!). We will form a small village inside the town. It’s a lovely quaint place, not touristy at all, which is a bonus, as this means that the prices are some 30% cheaper than the better known places around Bodrum and Marmaris.
The weather is also much more benign and mild in winter, or so we are told, some 10 degrees warmer than further up the coast, which is good as this will be our first winter for close to three years.
After our first stop in Egypt, which was Port Ghalib, we went to Hurghada. This town is a real tourist Mecca, and the diving is really big here. No wonder given the wonderful clarity of the Red Sea and the fact that this sea is probably one of the only ones left that has not been over fished! Look at those pics at Dolphin reef – one of our greatest highlights this trip.
We ended up staying close to a month at Hurghada marina, which was so comfy we found it difficult to leave. We also did our Egypt tour from here, and that meant that we could then proceed up to the Suez and to the Med without detours.
We loved Egypt, and the pyramids, temples and sights are something one should do once! Mind you after our 10 day tour which took us to Cairo, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo, Edfu and Luxor, we are quite templed out!+at+Abu+Simbel.JPG)
We very adventurously took a two day feluka trip up the Nile from Aswan to Kom Ombo, and this turned out really great and a good rest between museums, tombs and temples….
I have uploaded all the photos onto the Picasa website (now with captions) and you can view them all at leisure at - http://picasaweb.google.com/SV.Mischief
I will also send a second email with the Pirate Alley article I penned for our sailing club– for those of you interested in that particular journey (apologies to those of you at FSC who have already read it).
We picked our weather window carefully and had a good run to Suez and then through the canal to Ismailia through the ‘ditch’…or the “marlboro channel” (the pilots still asked for the traditional ‘gift’, some baksheesh and a box of Marlboro, and you must remember to keep some packets for everyone who tries to get in to the act including the ones who handle the dock ropes!!!). Out of the Canal, we were finally in the Mediterranean and headed across to Cyprus.
Cyprus was a very pleasant surprise. Very clean, quaint, very modern and almost too touristy along the whole coastline with many English people residing here. Understated in a way, but yet it has everything. Lovely mild climate, good clear waters and lovely beaches, ….and mountains where you can actually ski in winter!
If not for the fact that the marina is small, full and could not squeeze anyone in, it would have been a winter stop for us. To be honest, we are feeling somewhat cruised out after the long relentless haul from Thailand. The weather windows are too short and you have to keep moving.
You cannot really leave Phuket before end of December as the trade winds will not have set in yet for the Indian Ocean crossing, then have to be at Aden by end of February and ready to go up the Red Sea in March, or April at the latest or else you run into strong head winds, and it will take at least 6 weeks even pushing it to get through the Red Sea.
Many of our sailing friends have just reached turkey and not even bothering to cruise this summer as they are so tired!!!
Well, Turkey ahead for us, and catching up with Annika and Jesper who will be participating in the international windsurfing championships in Alicati (south of Izmir) this summer, and later with Bridget and Mark on their European campervan tour. We will probably go to Malta in late November for a few weeks, leaving MISCHIEF in Finike, but more news when we get back here.
Tunaydin dear friends.
I have not been able to find the Turkish equivalent of ‘Hello’ or ‘good day’, so it has to be ‘tunaydin’ (good afternoon)!
We are now in Finike, south west Turkey and ready to depart for our cruise up the coast to Izmir and then back again here for the winter.
Finike is a small town, with a lovely three year old marina really planned for yachties like us, many of whom will be wintering here (some seem to have made it a permanent home!). We will form a small village inside the town. It’s a lovely quaint place, not touristy at all, which is a bonus, as this means that the prices are some 30% cheaper than the better known places around Bodrum and Marmaris.
The weather is also much more benign and mild in winter, or so we are told, some 10 degrees warmer than further up the coast, which is good as this will be our first winter for close to three years.
After our first stop in Egypt, which was Port Ghalib, we went to Hurghada. This town is a real tourist Mecca, and the diving is really big here. No wonder given the wonderful clarity of the Red Sea and the fact that this sea is probably one of the only ones left that has not been over fished! Look at those pics at Dolphin reef – one of our greatest highlights this trip.
We ended up staying close to a month at Hurghada marina, which was so comfy we found it difficult to leave. We also did our Egypt tour from here, and that meant that we could then proceed up to the Suez and to the Med without detours.
We loved Egypt, and the pyramids, temples and sights are something one should do once! Mind you after our 10 day tour which took us to Cairo, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo, Edfu and Luxor, we are quite templed out!
+at+Abu+Simbel.JPG)
We very adventurously took a two day feluka trip up the Nile from Aswan to Kom Ombo, and this turned out really great and a good rest between museums, tombs and temples….
I have uploaded all the photos onto the Picasa website (now with captions) and you can view them all at leisure at - http://picasaweb.google.com/SV.Mischief
I will also send a second email with the Pirate Alley article I penned for our sailing club– for those of you interested in that particular journey (apologies to those of you at FSC who have already read it).
We picked our weather window carefully and had a good run to Suez and then through the canal to Ismailia through the ‘ditch’…or the “marlboro channel” (the pilots still asked for the traditional ‘gift’, some baksheesh and a box of Marlboro, and you must remember to keep some packets for everyone who tries to get in to the act including the ones who handle the dock ropes!!!). Out of the Canal, we were finally in the Mediterranean and headed across to Cyprus.
Cyprus was a very pleasant surprise. Very clean, quaint, very modern and almost too touristy along the whole coastline with many English people residing here. Understated in a way, but yet it has everything. Lovely mild climate, good clear waters and lovely beaches, ….and mountains where you can actually ski in winter!
If not for the fact that the marina is small, full and could not squeeze anyone in, it would have been a winter stop for us. To be honest, we are feeling somewhat cruised out after the long relentless haul from Thailand. The weather windows are too short and you have to keep moving.
You cannot really leave Phuket before end of December as the trade winds will not have set in yet for the Indian Ocean crossing, then have to be at Aden by end of February and ready to go up the Red Sea in March, or April at the latest or else you run into strong head winds, and it will take at least 6 weeks even pushing it to get through the Red Sea.
Many of our sailing friends have just reached turkey and not even bothering to cruise this summer as they are so tired!!!
Well, Turkey ahead for us, and catching up with Annika and Jesper who will be participating in the international windsurfing championships in Alicati (south of Izmir) this summer, and later with Bridget and Mark on their European campervan tour. We will probably go to Malta in late November for a few weeks, leaving MISCHIEF in Finike, but more news when we get back here.
